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Meeting Report for 9 May 2016

wordle

Written by Ash

Here we go

Our president, Helen, kicked off the night’s events energetically but with a rather depressing stat: it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become a competent speaker. It just goes to show a ‘natural speaker’ doesn’t exist, we can all do with the practice and what better place to spend 10,000 hours than with the amazing members and guests here at Bloomsbury 🙂

Our Toastmaster for the evening was long standing member, world class story teller and all round nice guy Peter Francis, who did a sterling job at encouraging the whoops and cheers and leading the proceedings for the night.

Roles for the evening

Grammarian: Great to see Bronia make a return to Bloomsbury and taking on the role of Grammarian. Bronia didn’t specify a word for the night but instead educated us on the use of Onomatopoeia and listened out for words that struck a chord throughout the evening.

Time Keeper: Sebastian made sure the evening ran to schedule and we made it to the bar on time.

Prepared Speeches and Evaluations

Speech 1: Ice Breaker ‘A stormy ocean frozen in granite’

Icebreaker

Speaker: Raymond

Well-known guest and newly appointed member Raymond took to the stage for his first prepared speech at Bloomsbury. Raymond impressed us all with his lack of notes, confident delivery, hand drawn map! and his illustrative use of language to describe his love of Dartmoor! Great job Raymond!

Evaluation: Helen

Helen commended Raymond for his strong stance, confidence and control. An immersive and vivid speech she thought.

Speech 2: Vocal Variety: ‘Yes, And’

BestSpeker

Speaker: Ash

Ash has recently attended an improvisation course on her quest to become a confident speaker and she shared the fundaments of improv known as ‘Yes, And’. Ash discussed how improv has taught her so much more than she had anticipated – how to let others get a word in edgeways, that she doesn’t always have to be in control and that life is more fun when we stop taking ourselves so seriously. If you are interested in an improvisation course, feel free to catch up with Ash at another meeting and she will be happy to fill you in.

Evaluation: Abraham

Abraham gave a glowing report in his evaluation – great use of gestures and vocal variety. He didn’t have any recommendations and instead mentioned his key take-away – that the message is a good lesson for us all, especially as Table Topics are not his friend. We hope to see you volunteering at the next meeting Abraham 🙂

Speech 3: Vocal Variety: ‘The Confines of Reality’

Speaker: Sheldon Dee

Sheldon tackled the confines of reality through the use of analogy. In a confident and well structured speech, Sheldon asked us whether we truly know the problem we want to solve? He explained that an analogy can be useful, to know what we already know but can also limit us when trying something new.

Evaluation: Swarajit

Swarajit summed up Sheldon’s speech as a clever contradiction, his delivery showed a great use of humor and engagement with the audience. Swarajit suggested he could have ‘gone nuts’ with the characters in his speech in terms of voice and tone but all round a cleverly written and well presented speech.

Speech 4: Research your topic: ‘True Heroes of Manhattan’

Speaker: Margarita

We all knew where Margarita spent the last 10 days – a question she posed in the opening of her speech. However, I don’t think we had imagined we would be led on a tour of Manhattan through the use of Marvel Heroes. Very engaging speech using Powerpoint to illustrate the setting and communicating plenty of facts along the way. I’m sure we will all be looking out for Winnie the Pooh on our next trip to the big apple.

Evaluator:

Francesca delivered her first evaluation with confidence and thought Margarita did a great job remembering specific facts without notes, in a greatly engaging way with tangible use of analogy.

Table topics

Our table topics master for the evening was Carrie, who used her own fear of spiders to drive the theme for this section of the evening.

TableTopics
  • Thalis was asked: “is it possible to cure a fear or phobia?” In a well-structured delivery Talis decided attack is the best approach and confronting a fear and overcoming it leads to success and happiness.
  • Chioma, when asked what she was most scared of decided her boss is her biggest fear.
  • Jack, was asked how his life would differ if he had nothing to be afraid of. Jack decided he would go through life carefree and might even be able to go to bed at night without the light on.
  • Christina, was asked “how scared should we be of our parents?” and thought that it is good to be a little scared but an equal balance (1 scary parent and 1 less so) is key to a happy family.
  • Sheldon, was asked “is it good to be anxious about anything?” Sheldon decided anxiety is not a good thing but a consciousness of our health is important.
  • Bronia, tackled the question “do you enjoy scary activities, and if so why?” It turns out Bronia is a bit of an adrenaline junky, mainly in a quest to feel present.
evaluator

Table Topics Evaluation – Claire gave an impressively eloquent and booming evaluation – zapping us with onomatopoeia and summing up that all participants showed an impressive use of structure and performance – as did Claire in her delivery.

Awards

Best speaker: Ash

Best evaluator: Claire

Best table topic: Thalis

Close

We ended the evening with a round up from our general evaluator, Annalise from Bilingual French Club – in fact it was her very first general evaluation at not only at Bloomsbury but also in English, very impressive Annalise. She complemented the friendliness of the club, perfect team work and impressive speakers throughout the night. She loved the strong message from our president and the smiley leadership of Peter our Toastmaster.

That’s it from me. See you all at the next meeting on Monday 23 May at the Clerk and Well (though the venue may be subject to change). Please get in touch at [email protected] if you have any questions!